FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti 
From pardons on an official schedule, to 'fake news' with artificial intelligence and threats against journalists; a foreign-funded movement seeks to recycle the Middle East cause on Albanian soil...
A few days ago, a legal initiative was launched in one of the parliamentary committees that, at first glance, may seem like respect for religious freedom.
MP Lefter Geshtenja has proposed that every public institution or private entity allow practicing Muslim believers to perform their prayers, through a two-hour break every day, especially on Friday. This initiative, although presented as a measure for the rights of believers, carries symbolic and political weight at a time when religious movements are seeking to project themselves beyond spirituality, as factors of political and electoral influence.
That same day, near the great mosque in Tirana funded by Erdogan’s government, an activity “in defense of family and life” took place. It was nothing new. This is the same entity that has been operating for years with the same message and funding, and that tries to cover the ground as a public moral voice, although it has never had any real popular support. It simply exists through money and political support that is silently given to it by powerful external centers.
At the same time, Albania, through its virtual space; has become a conflict field exported from the Middle East. With the growing war between Israel and Iran, we have seen a flood of media and sponsored profiles, which seek to divide public opinion and impose a political alignment, as if this country were a direct part of a conflict that has its roots outside of us.
A cleric-turned-influencer, closely linked to Erdoganist circles, published a suspicious montage a few days ago: a supposed photo of an Israeli newspaper from 1984, accompanied by a translation of it in Albanian, clearly produced with artificial intelligence. An unscrupulous attempt to build the narrative that Israel has always been an enemy of our nation. This kind of deliberate manipulation aims to inject hatred and ignite an emotional conflict in a population that has traditionally lived in peaceful interfaith coexistence.
In this sensitive terrain, there were also direct threats.
Ben Blushi's writing, a personal reflection on a trip to the border between Egypt and Israel, was met with a wave of hatred, culminating in death threats. Not because Blushi provoked with any extreme stance, but because he expressed an opinion that did not align with the ideological line of a structured Islamist current, which seeks to suppress any opinion that does not align with its agenda.
This is no longer a debate. It is an imposition. We are not dealing with ordinary citizens expressing their beliefs on Gaza or the Middle East. We are dealing with a structured political group that, with imported methodology, including media manipulation, intimidation and the cultivation of false public figures, is trying to replace the empty terrain of the opposition with an Islamist-type ideological action.
These people do not represent the Albanian Muslim community, are not recognized by the traditional structures of this community and have no real electoral base. They are simply agents of foreign agendas, who after failing to export neo-Ottomanism in imperial costume, are now trying to bring political Islam into play, in the form of a doctrine that is sold as a defense of religion, but is simply power in the name of religion.
From media sieges to so-called "theologian-analysts" recycled as lecturers at private universities, everyone is part of a deliberate and funded action by certain centers, who believe that Albania can be a neutral ground where a new version of the division between East and West is resurrected, with religion as a stick and flag.
Fortunately, the Albanian public is still immune to this scheme. But the danger is real. The danger is not religion, religion has its place and role, but when it is used as a platform for power, with foreign money and dark intentions…
Today, more than ever, Albania needs to defend constitutional secularism and resolutely stop any attempt to use religion as fuel for power and as gasoline for instability. These ideological experiments will not save anyone, neither from political decline nor from electoral failure. But they could ultimately damage a small, fragile country with a rare history of coexistence, which some are trying at all costs to use as a stage for their lost wars./ Pamphlet
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